Understanding Connections between Nature and Stress among Conservation-Engaged Adolescents Using Photovoice Methodology.

While the literature supports positive associations between nature and adolescent mental health, mechanisms are not well understood, and assessment of nature varies widely among existing studies. To partner with the most insightful informants, we enrolled eight adolescent participants from a conservation-informed summer volunteer program, applying qualitative photovoice methodology to understand their use of nature to relieve stress. Across five group sessions, participants identified four themes: (1) Nature shows us different aspects of beauty; (2) nature helps us relieve stressful experiences by balancing our senses; (3) nature gives us space to find solutions; and (4) we want to find time to enjoy nature. At the conclusion of the project, youth participants reported that the research experience was overwhelmingly positive, enlightening, and inspired appreciation of nature. We found that, while our participants unanimously reported that nature relieved their stress, prior to this project, they were not always intentional in seeking time in nature for this purpose. Through the photovoice process, these participants noted the usefulness of nature for stress relief. We conclude with recommendations for leveraging nature to decrease adolescent stress. Our findings are relevant for families, educators, students, healthcare professionals, and anyone who works with or cares for adolescents.

Green adherent degradation kinetics study of Nirmatrelvir, an oral anti-COVID-19: characterization of degradation products using LC-MS with insilico toxicity profile.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus sets up a global catastrophe, and countries all around the world made significant efforts to halt the spread. Nirmatrelvir (NMV) was lately approved by the FDA as a safe and well-tolerated oral direct-acting antiviral medication for SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. Therefore, a fast completely validated stability indicating method was established-for the first time- for NMV determination. The study used NaOH, HCl, neutral, H2O2, and sunlight to test NMV stability under various stress conditions followed by kinetics degradation investigation and derivation of Arrhenius plot. The analysis was performed using Agilent Zorbax Eclipse-C18 column (5 µm, 4.6 × 250 mm) with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile: 50 mM ammonium acetate, pH = 5 (50:50, v/v, respectively) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min with 5 min run time. Diode array detector (DAD) was set at 225 nm to quantify NMV at the concentration range of 5-500 µg/mL with LOD and LOQ of 0.6 and 2 µg/mL, respectively. Method's greenness was assessed using different metrics including Analytical Eco-Scale, Greenness Assessment Procedure Index, GAPI, and Analytical Greenness, AGREE. A thorough study of stress stability revealed that NMV was more susceptible to alkaline hydrolysis compared with acid hydrolysis. In contrast, it was found that NMV remained stable when subjected to oxidative, neutral, and sun-induced degradation conditions. Moreover, acid and alkali-induced hydrolysis were found to follow pseudo first order kinetics. Consequently, the half lifetime of the studied degradation conditions at room temperature were calculated using the Arrhenius plot. The mechanism of the degradation pathways under stress circumstances was proposed using LC-MS-UV. Toxicities of the proposed degradation products were assessed using ProTox-II, along with the parent medication NMV, and were shown to be hardly hazardous.

Dynamic blockchain adoption for freshness-keeping in the fresh agricultural product supply chain

During COVID-19, the explosive growth of demand for fresh agricultural products on E-commerce platform has increased the difficulty of maintaining the greenness and freshness in delivery. The traditional cold chain delivery is effective in keeping greenness, but its information asymmetry makes the freshness-keeping activities unable to be regulated, which may lead to the supply chain members giving up their freshness-keeping efforts. Can the blockchain technology effectively solve these problems? We consider a fresh agricultural product supply chain consisting of a supplier and an E-commerce platform (retailer). The retailer is responsible for the wholesale and sales of fresh agricultural products, and determines the blockchain adoption degree and advertising effort. The supplier is responsible for delivering fresh agricultural products to consumers, and determines the greenness investment and freshness-keeping effort. Based on the traditional and blockchain-based fresh agricultural product supply chain, we discuss the dynamic optimization of freshness-keeping effort, advertising effort, and blockchain adoption degree. Results show that the supplier will give up the freshness-keeping effort after receiving the wholesale funds in the traditional fresh agricultural product supply chain, which will naturally worsen the fresh agricultural products. When adopting blockchain technology, the supplier continues to make the freshness-keeping effort in delivery. And five specific settings are proved that blockchain is effective in maintaining freshness. But two other specific settings are determined that it is not suited for adopting blockchain. In addition, compared with the traditional fresh agricultural product supply chain, blockchain adoption can effectively reduce the freshness-keeping effort, advertising investment and goodwill for achieving the same profit margin level, and will not affect the greenness investment decision of the supplier. Our research can provide some insights into the cold chain logistics management of fresh blockchain. © 2022

Association of greenness with COVID-19 deaths in India: An ecological study at district level.

BACKGROUND: The world has witnessed a colossal death toll due to the novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). A few environmental epidemiology studies have identified association of environmental factors (air pollution, greenness, temperature, etc.) with COVID-19 incidence and mortality, particularly in developed countries. India, being one of the most severely affected countries by the pandemic, still has a dearth of research exploring the linkages of environment and COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVES: We evaluate whether district-level greenness exposure is associated with a reduced risk of COVID-19 deaths in India. METHODS: We used average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from January to March 2019, derived by Oceansat-2 satellite, to represent district-level greenness exposure. COVID-19 death counts were obtained through May 1, 2021 (around the peak of the second wave) from an open portal: covid19india.org. We used hierarchical generalized negative binomial regressions to check the associations of greenness with COVID-19 death counts. Analyses were adjusted for air pollution (PM2.5), temperature, rainfall, population density, proportion of older adults (50 years and above), sex ratio over age 50, proportions of rural population, household overcrowding, materially deprived households, health facilities, and secondary school education. RESULTS: Our analyses found a significant association between greenness and reduced risk of COVID-19 deaths. Compared to the districts with the lowest NDVI (quintile 1), districts within quintiles 3, 4, and 5 have respectively, around 32% [MRR = 0.68 (95% CI: 0.51, 0.88)], 39% [MRR = 0.61 (95% CI: 0.46, 0.80)], and 47% [MRR = 0.53 (95% CI: 0.40, 0.71)] reduced risk of COVID-19 deaths. The association remains consistent for analyses restricted to districts with a rather good overall death registration (>80%). CONCLUSION: Though cause-of-death statistics are limited, we confirm that exposure to greenness was associated with reduced district-level COVID-19 deaths in India. However, material deprivation and air pollution modify this association.

Dynamic blockchain adoption for freshness-keeping in the fresh agricultural product supply chain

During COVID-19, the explosive growth of demand for fresh agricultural products on E-commerce platform has increased the difficulty of maintaining the greenness and freshness in delivery. The traditional cold chain delivery is effective in keeping greenness, but its information asymmetry makes the freshness-keeping activities unable to be regulated, which may lead to the supply chain members giving up their freshness-keeping efforts. Can the blockchain technology effectively solve these problems? We consider a fresh agricultural product supply chain consisting of a supplier and an E-commerce platform (retailer). The retailer is responsible for the wholesale and sales of fresh agricultural products, and determines the blockchain adoption degree and advertising effort. The supplier is responsible for delivering fresh agricultural products to consumers, and determines the greenness investment and freshness-keeping effort. Based on the traditional and blockchain-based fresh agricultural product supply chain, we discuss the dynamic optimization of freshness-keeping effort, advertising effort, and blockchain adoption degree. Results show that the supplier will give up the freshness-keeping effort after receiving the wholesale funds in the traditional fresh agricultural product supply chain, which will naturally worsen the fresh agricultural products. When adopting blockchain technology, the supplier continues to make the freshness-keeping effort in delivery. And five specific settings are proved that blockchain is effective in maintaining freshness. But two other specific settings are determined that it is not suited for adopting blockchain. In addition, compared with the traditional fresh agricultural product supply chain, blockchain adoption can effectively reduce the freshness-keeping effort, advertising investment and goodwill for achieving the same profit margin level, and will not affect the greenness investment decision of the supplier. Our research can provide some insights into the cold chain logistics management of fresh blockchain.

The ecological impact of liquid chromatographic methods reported for bioanalysis of COVID-19 drug, hydroxychloroquine: Insights on greenness assessment.

Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that has been widely used during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic. Different liquid chromatographic methods have been reported for the analysis of hydroxychloroquine in various biological matrices such as human plasma, serum, whole blood, oral fluid, rat plasma and tissues. In this comparative study, the most popular tools used for assessing the greenness profile: National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI), Eco-Scale Assessment (ESA), Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) and Analytical Greenness metric (AGREE) were utilized to evaluate the ecological impact of eighteen liquid chromatographic methods developed for the bioanalysis of COVID-19 drug; hydroxychloroquine. NEMI is the simplest tool for evaluating the greenness profile of developed methods, but it is the least informative approach as all the reported methods had the same NEMI pictograms. On the other hand, GAPI is a dependable tool providing a complete picture about the method greenness starting from sampling until the final determination. ESA and AGREE tools are digitally presented and more easily applied. Therefore, their utilization for greenness assessment is highly recommended. Selection of the highest eco-friendly analytical procedure is of a paramount importance for protecting human health and the environment. Considering the greenness of the analytical procedures is highly recommended before proceeding to routine use in order to minimize the chemical hazards to the environment. The most eco-friendly analytical procedures for the analysis of hydroxychloroquine in biological samples according to ESA, GAPI and AGREE tools will be highlighted and discussed.

Eco-friendly resolution of spectrally overlapping signals of a combined triple-action over-the-counter pharmaceutical formulation for symptomatic management of COVID-19 pandemic: application to content uniformity testing.

Currently, all researchers are concentrating their efforts on countering the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of patients are managed at home, according to recent statistics. An OTC triple action combination comprising paracetamol (PAR), aspirin (ASP), and diphenhydramine (DIPH) is commonly given for pain relief, fever control, and as a night-time sleep aid. This combination is currently recommended for COVID-19 patients as part of symptomatic treatment and management. In this work, three smart, simple, accurate, eco-friendly, and cost-effective spectrophotometric methods are developed for simultaneous determination of PAR, ASP, and DIPH in their combined over-the-counter caplet dosage form without any prior separation steps. The first method is the first derivative spectrophotometry (D1) which determined PAR at 259.7 nm. The second one is the dual-wavelength in ratio spectra (DWRS) for determination of ASP at 214.1 and 220.1 nm after using 10.0 µg/mL of PAR as a divisor, where PAR was a constant, and the wavelengths difference equal to zero for DIPH. The third method is the double divisor-ratio difference spectrophotometric one (DD-RD) which was based on using the sum of 15.0 µg/mL of each of PAR and ASP as a double divisor, and the difference in amplitudes was measured at two wavelengths ∆P(214.5-226.0) for determination of DIPH. The developed methods have been validated as per ICH guidelines. Furthermore, the three suggested methods were employed successfully to assay marketed pharmaceutical formulation and to investigate the content uniformity of the dosage units in accordance with the United States Pharmacopeia's guidelines. Finally, the greenness profile of the proposed methods was assessed and compared with the reported method using the analytical eco-scale system, national environmental method index (NEMI), green analytical procedure index (GAPI), and analytical greenness (AGREE) metric. The results from the proposed methods statistically agreed with those obtained by the reported one, with no significant differences in accuracy and precision.

Is greenness an optimal hedge for sectoral stock indices?

The paper examines the role of green bonds in hedging the risk against industry portfolios and other major asset classes. It mainly focuses on how the greenness of the portfolio reduces the risk of green portfolios containing green bonds and 11 industrial sectors and major financial assets from October 2014 to November 2021. The results show that the risk of green portfolios is lower than that of unhedged (non-green) portfolios. Furthermore, our study provides evidence that the hedging effectiveness of green portfolios improves during the COVID–19 pandemic. Finally, the results show that investors across the risk aversion spectrum gain higher utility after considering the transaction costs while investing in green portfolios. These results are new additions to prior literature that can interest investors, fund managers, and policymakers.

Analytical Performance and Greenness Evaluation of Five Multi-Level Design Models Utilized for Impurity Profiling of Favipiravir, a Promising COVID-19 Antiviral Drug.

In 2018, the discovery of carcinogenic nitrosamine process related impurities (PRIs) in a group of widely used drugs led to the recall and complete withdrawal of several medications that were consumed for a long time, unaware of the presence of these genotoxic PRIs. Since then, PRIs that arise during the manufacturing process of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), together with their degradation impurities, have gained the attention of analytical chemistry researchers. In 2020, favipiravir (FVR) was found to have an effective antiviral activity against the SARS-COVID-19 virus. Therefore, it was included in the COVID-19 treatment protocols and was consequently globally manufactured at large-scales during the pandemic. There is information indigence about FVR impurity profiling, and until now, no method has been reported for the simultaneous determination of FVR together with its PRIs. In this study, five advanced multi-level design models were developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of FVR and two PRIs, namely; (6-chloro-3-hydroxypyrazine-2-carboxamide) and (3,6-dichloro-pyrazine-2-carbonitrile). The five developed models were classical least square (CLS), principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares (PLS), genetic algorithm-partial least squares (GA-PLS), and artificial neural networks (ANN). Five concentration levels of each compound, chosen according to the linearity range of the target analytes, were used to construct a five-level, three-factor chemometric design, giving rise to twenty-five mixtures. The models resolved the strong spectral overlap in the UV-spectra of the FVR and its PRIs. The PCR and PLS models exhibited the best performances, while PLS proved the highest sensitivity relative to the other models.

The association between greenness exposure and COVID-19 incidence in South Korea: An ecological study.

BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of COVID-19 has caused an emergency situation worldwide. Investigating the association between environmental characteristics and COVID-19 incidence can be of the occurrence and transmission. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between greenness exposure and COVID-19 cases at the district levels in South Korea. We also explored this association by considering several environmental indicators. METHODS: District-level data from across South Korea were used to model the cumulative count of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 persons between January 20, 2020, and February 25, 2021. Greenness exposure data were derived from the Environmental Geographic Information Service of the Korean Ministry of Environment. A negative binomial mixed model evaluated the association between greenness exposure and COVID-19 incidence rate at the district level. Furthermore, we assessed this association between demographic, socioeconomic, environmental statuses, and COVID-19 incidence. RESULTS: Data from 239 of 250 districts (95.6%) were included in the analyses, resulting in 127.89 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 persons between January 20, 2020 and February 25, 2021. Several demographic and socioeconomic variables, districts with a higher rate of natural greenness exposure, were significantly associated with lower COVID-19 incidence rates (incidence rate ratio (IRR), 0.70; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.54-0.90; P-value = 0.008) after adjusting covariates, but no evidence for the association between built greenness and COVID-19 incidence rates was found. CONCLUSION: In this ecological study of South Korea, we found that higher rates of exposure to natural greenness were associated with lower rates of COVID-19 cases.

Sustainable liquid chromatographic determination and purity assessment of a possible add-on triple-action over-the-counter pharmaceutical combination in COVID-19.

Nowadays, all researchers are focused on combating the pandemic COVID-19. According to recent statistics, most patients are managed at home. An over-the-counter (OTC) triple action formula containing paracetamol (PAR), aspirin (ASP), and diphenhydramine (DIPH) is widely prescribed for pain, fever and as night-time sleep aid. For COVID-19 patients, this combination is now suggested as part of symptomatic therapy and prophylaxis. In this work, two simple liquid chromatographic approaches were designed for simultaneous determination of PAR, ASP, and DIPH in Excedrin® PM caplets, beside three specified official toxic impurities, namely, p-aminophenol, p-nitrophenol, and salicylic acid. The first method comprised high-performance thin-layer chromatographic separation coupled with densitometric quantification, on silica gel HPTLC 60 F254 aluminium sheets as the stationary phase, ethyl acetate-methanol-aqueous ammonium hydroxide (10.0: 2.0: 0.1, by volume) as the developing system and scanning was performed at 210.0 nm. The second one is a high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detector. Successful separation of the six components was performed on XTerra C18 column with isocratic elution of mobile phase 0.1% triethylamine acidified water: methanol (70:30, v/v) adjusted with o-phosphoric acid to pH 3.0 and methanol (90:10, v/v) with flow rate programming and detection at 210.0 nm. Validation of the proposed methods was performed according to ICH guidelines. Both methods were successfully used for quality control of the cited drugs in their marketed formulation. Moreover, the in-vitro release study was monitored using the proposed HPLC-DAD method. The greenness profile of the proposed methods was assessed and comparatively evaluated through various assessment tools, specifically; the analytical eco-scale system, national environmental method index (NEMI), green analytical procedure index (GAPI) and analytical greenness (AGREE) metric.

City-level greenness exposure is associated with COVID-19 incidence in China.

Accumulating studies have suggested an important role of environmental factors (e.g. air pollutants) on the occurrence and development of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Evidence concerning the relationship of greenness on COVID-19 is still limited. This study aimed to assess the association between greenness and COVID-19 incidence in 266 Chinese cities. A total of 12,377 confirmed COVID-19 cases were identified through February 29th, 2020. We used the average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) during January and February 2020 from MOD13A2 product, to represent the city-level greenness exposure. A generalized linear mixed-effects model was used to estimate the association between NDVI exposure and COVID-19 incidence using COVID-19 cases as the outcome. We evaluated whether the association was modified by population density, GDP per capita, and urbanization rate, and was mediated by air pollutants. We also performed a series of sensitivity analyses to discuss the robustness of our results. Per 0.1 unit increment in NDVI was negatively associated with COVID-19 incidence (IRR: 0.921, 95% CI: 0.898, 0.944) after adjustment for confounders. Associations with COVID-19 incidence were stronger in cities with lower population density, lower GDP per capita, and lower urbanization rate. We failed to detect any mediation effect of air pollutants on the association between NDVI and COVID-19 incidence. Sensitivity analyses also indicated consistent estimates. In conclusion, our study suggested a beneficial association between city-level greenness and COVID-19 incidence. We could not establish which mechanisms may explain this relationship.

Environmental impact of the reported chromatographic methods for the determination of the first FDA-Approved therapy for COVID-19 Patients, Remdesivir: A comparative study.

Remdesivir (REM) is considered the first therapeutic option approved by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical care in case of hospitalized patients suffering in COVID-19 epidemic. In the presented multilateral comparative search, four eco friendlessness approaches -National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI), Eco-Scale Assessment (ESA), Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI), and Analytical Greenness metric (AGREE) are tested to assess 16 analytical chromatographic procedures reported for the analysis of the commonly used antiviral drug; Remdesivir (REM). The values of testing more than one approach when estimating the eco-friendly characters for analytical methods are illustrated in this study. On the light of the outcomes, ESA and AGREE approaches are recommended as they are easily applied and digitally presented. Furthermore, GAPI is also a reliable tool in terms of comprehensiveness for the whole analytical procedures, from sampling till the final assessment. NEMI is the easiest and fastest greenness evaluation tool; however, the information it provides is particularly of limited scope and sometimes inaccurate. To ensure greenness of chromatographic analytical methods, there must be clear planning beforehand, to reduce chemical hazards sent to environment. Additionally, it is highly recommended in method validation protocols to consider the greenness of a given analytical procedure before releasing to routine use. The LC-MS/MS analysis for the active metabolite of REM (Nuc) reported by Avataneo et al. and Du et al. proved to be the best bio-analytical methods regarding the environmental aspects depending on the GAPI and AGREE tools. However, the HPLC method for REM analysis in intravenous solution reported by Jitta et al. proved to be the greenest analytical method for determination of REM in the pharmaceutical dosage forms according to the ESA, GAPI, and AGREE tools.

Residential greenness is associated with disease severity among COVID-19 patients aged over 45 years in Wuhan, China.

Evidence regarding environmental factors associated with disease severity of COVID-19 remained scarce. This study aimed to investigate the association of residential greenness exposure with COVID-19 severity applying a retrospective cross-sectional study in Wuhan, China. We included 30,253 COVID-19 cases aged over 45 years from January 1 to February 27, 2020. Residential greenness was quantitatively assessed using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI). A multilevel generalized linear model using Poisson regression was implemented to analyze the association between greenness exposure and disease severity of COVID-19, after adjusting for potential covariates. A linear exposure-response relationship was found between greenness and COVID-19 severity. In the adjusted model, one 0.1 unit increase of NDVI and EVI in the 1000-m buffer radius was significantly associated with a 7.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 4.0%, 11.1%) and 10.0% (95% CI: 5.1%, 14.7%) reduction of the prevalence of COVID-19 severity, respectively. The effect of residential greenness seemed to be more pronounced among participants with lower population density and economic levels. Air pollutants mediated 0.82~12.08% of the greenness and COVID-19 severity association, particularly to nitrogen dioxide. Sensitivity analyses suggested the robustness of the results. Our findings suggested that residential greenness exposure was beneficial to reduce the prevalence of COVID-19 severity.

US FDA-validated TLC method with four greenness assessment evaluations for simultaneous determination of prednisolone and esomeprazole in spiked human plasma.

Recently, prednisolone has been used in treating many medical conditions, such as autoimmune diseases and cancer. It is also prescribed to mitigate the respiratory complications caused by COVID-19 infection. It can cause some health complications, such as GIT ulcers, so it should be co-administered with proton-pump inhibitors, such as esomeprazole, to prevent the risk of ulcers. This work aims to develop an ecofriendly and sensitive TLC method for simultaneous determination of esomeprazole and prednisolone in their binary mixtures and spiked human plasma. Separation was performed using a mixture of ethyl acetate, methanol, and ammonia (9.5:0.5:0.1, v/v/v) as an eluting system with UV scanning at 245 nm. Dapoxetine was used as an internal standard to correct the variation during sampling. The resulting Rf values for plasma, esomeprazole, prednisolone, and dapoxetine were 0.03, 0.51, 0.72 and 0.85, respectively. Four greenness assessment tools-national environmental method index, eco-scale assessments, analytical greenness metric approach (AGREE), and green analytical procedure index (GAPI)-were used to evaluate the greenness characteristics of the proposed method to the environment, and the results were acceptable and satisfactory. Validation parameters were checked according to the US FDA guidelines to achieve the international requirements for bioanalytical method validation, and the results were within the accepted ranges.

Mental Health, Greenness, and Nature Related Behaviors in the Adult Population of Stockholm County during COVID-19-Related Restrictions.

International data suggest that exposure to nature is beneficial for mental health and well-being. The restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have created a setting that allows us to investigate the importance of greenness exposure on mental health during a period of increased isolation and worry. Based on 2060 responses from an online survey in Stockholm County, Sweden, we investigated: (1) whether the COVID-19 pandemic changed peoples' lifestyle and nature-related habits, and (2) if peoples' mental health differed depending on their exposure to greenness. Neighborhood greenness levels were quantified by using the average normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) within 50 m, 100 m, 300 m, and 500 m buffers surrounding the participant's place of residence. We found that the number of individuals that reported that they visited natural areas "often" was significantly higher during the pandemic than before the pandemic. Higher levels of greenness surrounding one's location of residence were in general associated with higher mental health/well-being and vitality scores, and less symptoms of depression, anxiety, and perceived and cognitive stress, after adjustments for demographic variables and walkability. In conclusion, the results from the present study provided support to the suggestion that contact with nature may be important for mental health in extreme circumstances.